


Things That Never Happened: Multiple Personality Disorder

by wheel_pen



Series: Alice [41]
Category: Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Naughtiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-04
Updated: 2013-05-04
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:09:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of Alice series. Alice tells Lana an elaborate lie, to help Clark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Never Happened: Multiple Personality Disorder

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Alice, my original female character, is new in Smallville. There is something special about her, and she and Clark form a relationship.
> 
> 2\. This series starts after the end of the second season—after the destruction of the spaceship and Clark abruptly leaving town.
> 
> 3\. Underage warning: This story may contain human or human-like teenagers, in high school, in sexual situations.
> 
> 4\. The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

            “Multiple personality disorder?” Lana repeated with disbelief.

            Alice shushed her, glancing around the Talon. Fortunately most of the other patrons were too engrossed in their caffeine and conversation to overhear the two girls.

            Alice nodded, eyes wide and sincere. “He was diagnosed when he was twelve or thirteen, I think,” she added. “It’s been such a struggle for him to deal with it.” She stared off into space, as if contemplating said struggles forlornly.

            Lana drew back a bit, shaking her head. “I-I just can’t believe that, Alice,” she decided, shocked. “I mean, Clark Kent is the most normal—“ Alice arched a dark eyebrow at her, and Lana stopped herself from finishing the sentence, thinking back on her interactions with Clark over the last few years. Alice thought the brunette was on the verge of accepting the information when suddenly her amazing power of denial kicked back in. “No, I just—I can’t believe that about Clark. I can’t believe he wouldn’t have told us.”

            Alice sighed. “Lana,” she reasoned, “just try to put yourself in his shoes for a minute. He’s been adopted from who the h—l knows where, born to who the h—l knows _what_ kind of parents who just _dumped_ him somewhere.” Lana winced in sympathy, as Alice knew she would. “He’s growing up in Smallville, he’s got a good life, but he doesn’t exactly blend in, you know? And then, all of a sudden, just when he’s hitting the most awkward time of life _anyway_ , all this _weird stuff_ starts happening to him.”

            “What kind of weird stuff?” Lana asked, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

            “Well, you ought to be able to tell _me_ better than _I_ can tell _you_ ,” Alice pointed out. “I mean, you’ve known him longer. Don’t tell me there haven’t been times when you and Clark were having a perfectly good conversation, and then all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, his mood shifted or he ran off, and then he wouldn’t tell you later what it was about.” Lana nodded slowly. Yes, there had definitely been a lot of times like that. “That’s all because of this...” She gestured towards her head. “...mental thing. And they’ve got him on so many different medications,” Alice continued, “sometimes I think all the chemicals going through his system are the worst part.”

            It was definitely a theory that fit the facts, Lana had to admit. But part of her still wanted to reject it—finding out something so incredible about someone she had been so close to... how could she have not known about it before?

            “How could he have kept this from me?” she finally said aloud, with some irritation. “Why wouldn’t he _trust_ me? Why wouldn’t he be _honest_ with me?”

            Alice restrained herself from rolling her eyes at the familiar refrain and tried to just be relieved that Lana seemed to believe her. “Lana, I think you’ve always known that Clark has... secrets,” she began. “Or rather, one _big_ secret. Keeping it a secret—it’s not a matter of _trust_ , he’s just... embarrassed by it.”

            “Embarrassed?” Lana repeated with confusion. “But it’s not his fault! He can’t help it.”

            Alice nodded. “Look, that’s what _I_ say, that’s what his parents say, that’s what his doctors say,” she agreed, “but Clark’s just... mortified by it. I mean, sure, it would probably make things easier, make people more understanding when something... odd happens, but... He doesn’t want people’s pity, Lana.” Alice’s blue eyes bored into Lana’s brown ones. “He doesn’t want people shaking their heads at him and going, ‘Too bad about that Kent boy. How tragic.’”

            The words hit home with Lana, as Alice knew they would. How many times had the other girl heard those words from well-meaning adults, directed at herself? “Too bad about that Lang girl. How tragic, to have both her parents killed in that meteor shower.” She knew first-hand the kind of suffocation that such sentiments could cause. She hadn’t felt really free to make her own choices until the day she found her mother’s diary and quit the cheerleading squad. And even then she hadn’t known what choices she wanted to _make_ , until the Talon had come along.

            Alice shrugged. “He just wants people to accept him as he is, on his own terms.” She paused and sipped at her coffee.

            Lana was deep in thought for a few minutes; hurt and sympathy warred across her features, easily observable to Alice, and in the end, of course, sympathy won out. Sympathy and a little curiosity. “So he has... multiple personalities?” she ventured tentatively.

            Alice nodded. “Well, actually there’s just one other one. That we know of, I mean.”

            “What’s he—um, it?—like?”

            Alice pursed her lips, as if she wasn’t sure if she should elaborate. Then she made her decision and leaned forward, encouraging Lana to do likewise. “Well, it’s a _he_ —they aren’t always, you know.” Lana nodded as if she had known that. “Now usually he’ll answer to the name Clark still, because he’s a little devious, but really he prefers to be called Kal.”

            “Cal?” Lana repeated incredulously.

            “With a _k_ ,” Alice added. “He’s very particular about the _k_.” Her tone suggested that when Kal was particular about something, it was wise to get it right. “Kal is much more aggressive than Clark. Rebellious. Flirtatious. Obnoxious, often. Hedonistic. He does what he wants when he wants to, and he doesn’t care too much about the rules he might break while doing it.”

            Lana nodded slowly. The puzzle pieces were fitting into place. “I think I’ve met him,” she breathed.

            “I thought you probably had, once or twice,” Alice confirmed.

            Suddenly a thought crossed Lana’s mind that turned her stomach to ice. “Is Kal—dangerous?”

            Alice looked pensive. “I don’t know that ultimately he’s a bad—person,” she decided, which was far from reassuring to Lana. “But he’s not as careful as Clark. He’s not as _caring_. I don’t think that he would _really_ hurt someone he cared about—physically, I mean—but... someone might get hurt because he’s reckless.” She tapped the side of the ceramic coffee cup with a black nail and Lana jumped at the unexpected sound. “If you suspect that you’re not talking to Clark anymore,” Alice added seriously, “you should definitely call his parents right away. Or me, or Pete.” Alice braced herself.

            “Pete?” Lana gasped. “ _Pete_ knows?”

            “Apparently he’s known for a couple years now,” Alice admitted. “I think they were kind of... _forced_ to tell him, so that Clark could get help during one of his... episodes. That’s the only reason _I_ found out, because circumstances forced it, I mean.”

            “What circumstances?” Lana wanted to know.

            Again, Alice appeared reluctant to reply, but she finally decided to go for it. “Well... do you remember last year, when Clark came to school on his dad’s motorcycle, with the black leather jacket, and just grabbed me in the middle of the hallway and started making out?” Lana swallowed hard and nodded. She remembered that all too well. “Well...” Alice took a deep breath, as if the memory were painful to recall. “He only had one thing on his mind. We went back to my house, and I didn’t... want to, but you know how strong Clark is...”

            Lana gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Oh, Alice, he didn’t—“

            Alice shook her head quickly. “No, my mom hit him in the head with a shovel first,” she revealed to the other girl. “But when he woke up, I wasn’t _about_ to let that kind of thing go, you know?” Lana nodded readily. “And then I wanted to know why he demanded I call him ‘Kal,’ and it just kind spiraled out from there.”

            Lana was almost shaking now, remembering all the times she’d been out with Clark, alone with Clark, even alone with this... Kal character apparently, and how easy it would have been for him to... “Alice, he’s... he’s _dangerous_ ,” she concluded. “Shouldn’t he... _be_ somewhere? Where he can get help, I mean?” And to think she had always felt so _safe_ with Clark...

            Alice grimaced. Maybe she had gone into too much detail. “I don’t think you have to be _worried_ about it, Lana,” she hastened to add. “I mean, yeah, Kal can be pushy and intimidating sometimes, but... I don’t think he would hurt you. It’s more like—if he caught someone _bothering_ you, or another of his friends, he wouldn’t know when to... stop, like Clark would.” Lana looked marginally less freaked. “And Kal himself doesn’t really appear that often,” Alice went on. “It’s just—he’s the most _dramatic_ part of the syndrome. Most of the time, the disorder just manifests itself as all those quirky little things we should be used to Clark doing by now—“

            “The mood swings, the disappearing acts, the evasiveness,” Lana suggested, nodding her head in understanding.

            “Exactly,” Alice confirmed. “I mean, sometimes it’s the illness itself, other times it’s some side effect of a new medication. And then, you know, he doesn’t want to say _why_ he’s acting odd, and you know Clark is such a terrible liar...”

            Lana bobbed her head in agreement. It was all so clear now. Clark Kent had a mental illness. Multiple personality disorder. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t considered that possibility before. How wrong she’d been, to blame him for running out on her or refusing to explain himself—she must have made him feel all the more guilty and ashamed of himself. She was a terrible person.

            Alice noticed Lana’s eyes welling up with tears and she cursed herself for laying it on so thickly. “Oh, Alice,” Lana sniffed, “I feel so awful. The way I’ve treated Clark in the past—who knows how much damage I did to him, without knowing?”

            Alice stifled a snort. Even brimming with sympathy for Clark, Lana’s emotional awareness didn’t extend too far away from herself. “It’s okay, Lana,” Alice tried to tell her. “He doesn’t blame you, or Chloe, or anyone else—you couldn’t have known, and he didn’t _want_ you to know.”

            “I’m just so—I’m so sorry about how I’ve acted,” Lana confessed brokenly. “Thank you _so_ much for telling me, Alice.”

            “Well,” Alice nodded sagely, “Clark’s trying to be more open about this. But it’s still difficult for him to talk about, you know?” Lana nodded quickly. “I think it would probably be best not to mention it to him, really,” she added delicately. “I mean, he knows you know, and he knows you know he knows, and...” She waited until Lana was nodding more in confusion than anything else. “But we have to let him bring it up in his own time. You know?”

            “I agree completely, Alice,” Lana told her sincerely, wiping a stray tear off her cheek with her hand. “You’re so strong, and so loyal, to stand by him like this.”

            Now Alice was feeling a little embarrassed. “Oh well um... I’m sure if you were in my place, you’d do the same thing,” she mumbled.

            “I don’t know,” Lana replied doubtfully. “I just don’t know if I could have done it, Alice. You two were... really meant to be together.” With that, Lana pushed herself away from the table and hurried to the back room to cry where only the dirty linen and extra glassware could see her.

            Alice sipped her cooling coffee and ignored a few curious glances from patrons who had seen Lana leave the table. The girl would be upset for a little while, she would feel guilty, she would act a little weird around Clark at first—and chances were, Clark would simply fail to notice all of that, as usual. All in all, Alice thought the big revelation had gone well.

            It was a necessary lie, she had decided. And it was the best kind of lie, because it was actually partly true—red Kryptonite _was_ like a drug in its influence over Clark, literally bringing out a side of his personality he didn’t really like. Lex would have to know the _whole_ truth, of course, because if she told _him_ Clark had multiple personality disorder, he’d have every shrink in Metropolis beating down the Kents’ door.

            Alice drained her coffee cup and stood, leaving a dollar tip on the table. Chloe ought to be at the offices of the _Torch_ right about now, putting the finishing touches on her latest article about meteor mutants. She would have to spin it a little differently for the blond, of course. A mental disorder was shockingly strange to Lana; but ironically, Chloe would find it almost too... _pedestrian_ to believe. Alice had armed herself with a solid array of medical facts and citations to back up her claims, because she knew the minute she left Chloe would be looking up everything the Internet had to say about multiple personality disorder, and if the blond couldn’t be convinced to give Clark some space about his “issue,” she’d be suggesting crackpot treatments and blaming it on meteor-dust inhalation or something like that.

            And frankly, Alice would just prefer Clark _not_ find out what she had been telling his friends. It would just be _easier_ that way, for everyone concerned.


End file.
